Hi Keith and others, Just a few thoughts.... I don't know whether anyone else has the same 'problem', but I am still running my Vantage under System 7.1, chiefly because it does what it is supposed to do ie control the sort and I am unwilling to upgrade and possibly introduce all sorts of problems (which is what happened when I upgraded a previous working HP system to a then new Mac system) - if it ain't broke etc. This has caused the computer people here (God bless 'em) to tear their hair out and repeatedly ask me to upgrade even if only to 8.1. I too have been wondering how BD in particular will be dealing with the major changes that will occur with the more UNIX-like feel of OS X (OS 9 does appear to be a sort of a stopgap). The newer G4 processors are much speedier but we could also take the view that we are being forced into buying hugely overspecced computers by market forces and, of course, software follows suit - look at the bloated nature of most web browsers (with the honourable exception of iCab) and word processing software. However, it will be incumbent on machine manufacturers to keep up. If I may be Satan's pal for a moment, maybe it would be an idea to consider separate program versions for acquisition and analysis. After all, even today's processors are speedy enough to analyse huge numbers of cells per second and we could keep many machines going on "outdated" hardware for years. Then an analysis program could be freed to keep up with OS changes without the need to make sure that it will also acquire data, speak to the cytometer etc etc. Of course a third party program (?like FlowJo) would do just as well and already exist. At the moment there seems to be confusion as to which OS will run CellQuest, whether it will work for analysis only etc. Still, could be worse, we might be running Windows and we do have Jonathon Ive's top designs! Derek On Thu, 13 Jan 2000, Keith Bahjat wrote: <Snip fully deserved Apple eulogy> > In the meantime, I would drop a line to BD, reminding them that OS X is > coming in August, at which point their software will not be compatible with > the previous two generations of the MacOS (much less being AltiVec capable). > The cytometry companies feel no pressure to provide us with cutting edge > software, evidenced by the hundreds of labs running their XL software under > DOS (yuk!). Maybe Verity or TreeStar will make some inroads if we demand > state of the art software. ************************************************************************ Derek Davies Voice: (44) 0207 269 3394 FACS Laboratory, FAX: (44) 0207 269 3100 Imperial Cancer Research Fund, e_mail: derek.davies@icrf.icnet.uk London, UK Web Page: http://www.icnet.uk/axp/facs/davies/index.html In tenebris lux *************************************************************************
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